LACMA possesses a number of outstanding painted vessels from Tepe Sialks Cemetery B, near Kashan, in central Iran. These beak-spouted or bridge-spouted vessels best reflect the art of the early Iranians on the Iranian plateau. When newcomers arrived at the town of Sialk during this period, they leveled the existing mound and built a fortified mansion on stone foundations. Their dead were buried in a graveyard away from the town, now called Cemetery B, where some two hundred tombs have been excavated. The date of this cemetery, according to the objects found in the graves, is estimated to be from 800 to 700 BC. The tombs contained a notable series of painted vessels, which appear to have been a luxury funerary ware of the period. The prominent characteristic of this pottery is the decorative motif of horses and elegantly standing ibexes, which was new to the art of the painted ceramics on the Iranian plateau.
